Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

Solidarity supports the Bill and will campaign for a "Yes" vote in the referendum. We formally proposed the removal of the offence of blasphemy in our Bill in July 2017.

The 1937 Constitution which is being amended was designed in a Catholic state where the Catholic Church held a privileged and special position. There are multiple references specifically from a Catholic or Christian belief. There are religious freedoms contained in the Constitution, but the tone is very much that of a Catholic state that permits or tolerates other religions, rather than people having religious freedom as a right.

While supporting the removal of blasphemy as an offence, for reasons I will go into, I am very disappointed that our proposed amendments to the Bill were ruled out of order. It was an opportunity to go much further. The amendments would have given the House the opportunity to allow voters to move beyond the offence of blasphemy and remove all archaic religious based references from the Constitution. I shall give some examples.

The preamble to the Constitution refers to "our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ". Article 6 of the Constitution states "All powers [derive] under God ...". That is a ludicrous assertion for the many people who do not hold to it, or that we in this House must subscribe to one God. There are also religious oaths for the Judiciary and the Presidency which inhibit non-believers or those with non-Christian beliefs from taking these offices. Article 44 states, "The State acknowledges that the homage of public worship is due to Almighty God". There are provisions that give the green light to the State to impose and favour religion in public services and public spaces. We see this every day in the health and education sectors and the Dáil recently. I put it to the Minister that this was a chance to delete something as ludicrous as "Humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, Who sustained our fathers [nothing about our mothers, of course] through centuries of trial". We proposed that this be deleted from the English text of the Constitution, but, unfortunately, that opportunity was not taken. It smacks of tokenism following the historic and momentous referendum on the repeal of the eighth amendment which was driven from outside the Dáil by young and working people.

The reference to blasphemy curtails free speech and acts as a chilling effect on debate. Atheists who appear on television or radio programmes can be warned not to stray into blasphemy. While the last prosecution was in 1855, the offence is still in place. The case of Stephen Fry is pertinent; it is both well known and recent. Nothing he said could have been considered to be offensive. They were his honestly held views, but the Garda still spent time investigating him to state the 2009 Act had been contravened. In the end he was not prosecuted, but the case serves as a warning. Under the Constitution, the Oireachtas can legislate to allow people who question religion or God to actually be prosecuted.

It also says a lot that the Green Party and Fianna Fáil in government saw fit to bring forward not even ten years ago the Defamation Act 2009, which shows us that it is a sign of the times. It includes the provision, "A person who publishes or utters blasphemous matter shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable upon conviction on indictment to a fine not exceeding €25,000". That provision is still in place. For example, it has been cited that Pakistan's blasphemy law was taken from Ireland's. This is an attack on people who are religious. People who are religious can be convicted for blasphemy, as they are in other countries. A person who is a Muslim could be deemed to have blasphemed a Hindu's customs or mores. This is about freedom of religion, but it is also about freedom not to be forced to profess a religion.

With the massive support achieved in the marriage equality referendum and also in the repeal referendum, we see that the establishment is keen to be seen to be moving on very symbolic matters. While I welcome this, we should be going much further. It is past time that we separated church and State. The mass indifference shown by the public to the Pope's visit speaks volumes about where people believe society should be going.

It was obviously expected, including by the State, that there would be 500,000 or 600,000 people in attendance. Roads in Dublin West like the Navan Road were shut down. The State was out of step again, and this Bill should go much further than it does.

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